LOS ANGELES _ Michael Avenatti, the lawyer for porn actress Stormy Daniels, was hit with a personal judgment of $4.85 million on Monday for his failure to pay a debt to a former colleague at his Newport Beach firm.
The judgment by Judge Dennis J. Landin in state Superior Court in Los Angeles is the latest in a series of setbacks for Avenatti in his longtime dispute with Jason Frank, the former colleague.
Frank has also won a $10 million judgment against the firm Eagan Avenatti, which emerged from federal bankruptcy protection in March after making promises to pay millions of dollars to Frank and other creditors, including the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.
"My client has had an awful lot of money owed to him for a lengthy period of time," Frank's attorney Eric George said, "and it has been delayed through one tactic or another. Today finally the right thing happened."
Avenatti had no immediate response to a request for comment.
The judgment came just as an Orange County trial was opening on the possible eviction of Eagan Avenatti from its offices in Newport Beach.
The firm's landlord, 520 Newport Center Drive LLC, an arm of the Irvine Co., says Eagan Avenatti missed $213,254 in rent payments over the last four months for its ocean-view suite on the 14th floor of an office building at the Fashion Island mall.
Nobody from Eagan Avenatti showed up for the trial.
In court papers, the firm claimed it deducted the cost of needed repairs from its rent payments but did not receive proper credit.
The landlord denied that the offices needed any serious repairs. And the lease, signed by Avenatti, says the tenant "understands that it shall not make repairs at landlord's expense or by rental offset."
In July, Eagan Avenatti paid the monthly rent of $52,235, but the check bounced, according to the landlord.
